Lixada 2.8L Titanium Pot Review

"I love to eat, I love to cook.  It's just a fact of my life, even when I'm in the backcountry or doing a training hike.  This pot makes cooking easier."  That's how my review of the MSR ceramic coated solo pot begins.  This Lixada pot does NOT make cooking easier, but when I need a large vessel that is very lightweight it does make cooking POSSIBLE!  It is now a permanent resident in my multi person trip gear loadout!

For boiling a liter of water almost any pot will do and I can even use my stainless steel water bottle, but if I want to make something that requires a little room I don't want to carry a cast iron dutch oven up a mountain.  

That's where this pot shines.  I did a primitive outdoor cook over oak coals to test this pot and some dried ingredients at Umpstead State Park, I like to truly know how a piece of gear or new ingredients perform before I trust my fresh venison to them in the woods.  The pot stood up well to cooking directly on a bed of coals, was large enough to cook two rear shanks from a large whitetail buck and sturdy enough to take a little beating around.  That is to be expected from a backcountry camping vessel, the 2.8L size is twice as large or more than most hikers/hunters carry and that's not to be expected when finding a featherweight cooking vessel.  This pot weighs less than 11 ounces with the lid and less than 8 ounces without.  The little handle on the top of the lid is also titanium which allows me to put coals on top with out melting the only way to remove a hot lid and the piece is large enough to allow gloved hands, a knife or even a stick to be used when removing the lid.  This is a well thought out piece of kit.

There are some drawbacks to cooking with titanium in general.  First off it seems like EVERYTHING but water sticks to titanium when cooking, just expect it, accept it and prepare for it.  Titanium is also an excellent conductor of heat so it will heat up faster than aluminum but will not hold the heat as long so prepare to move the pot around to avoid burning your food and don't expect to let it rest very long in a hot pot.  Are there drawbacks to cooking with this pot in particular?  Absolutely, a 2.8 liter pot is going to take up a lot of room in your pack.  Also even using titanium you need very thin metal to achieve the weight Lixada has.  This pot will bend or flex very easily, even with the tight fitting lid on.  But these are small issues that I am willing and prepared to face!

This is a great pot that weighs less than aluminum pots half its volume and is durable enough to use for years.  It is not an inexpensive piece of gear but for my uses it is well worth the investment.